Ngaio Marsh - Death And The Dancing Footman

“I’ve tried to get it down to some sort of coherent form.”

“When you made your notes did you think of anything new, anything that would help to explain about William?”

Mandrake did not answer immediately. They had reached a stretch of road where the snow was less thick and was frozen hard. They had left the Cloudyfold hills behind and to their right, and had come into a level stretch between downlands and within sight of scattered cottages, each with its banner of smoke, the only signals of warmth in that cold countryside. Hedges broke through the snow, like fringes of black coral in an immobile sea. There was no wind down here and the trees, lined with snow, made frozen gestures against a sky of lead. Mandrake was visited by the notion that his car was a little world which clung precariously to its power of movement and he felt as if he himself fought, not against snow and mud, but against immobility. He wrenched his thoughts round to Chloris’ question.

“If you open that attaché-case you’ll find the notes,” he said. “Would you get them out? I don’t know if you can read in this state of upheaval. Try.”

Chloris managed to read the notes. They crept on with occasional wallowings in softer snow, and presently James Bewling said that the next turn in the road would bring them within sight of the spire of Winton St. Giles parish church, and Mandrake himself began to recognize the countryside and distant groups of trees that he had passed on his way from Winton to Cloudyfold. That was on Thursday. And, as he arrived at this point, through the open driving window came the faintest echo of a bell.

“Good Lord!” he thought, “it’s Sunday. Suppose they’re all in church. James,” he called out, “what time is morning service at St. Giles?”

“Ah. Rector do set most store by early service,” James rejoined. “She be at eight. T’others at half-past ten. Reckon he’ll have it to hisself this morning.”

“That’s all right, then. But what’s that bell?”

“Rector do ring bell at noon.”

“The Angelus,” said Mandrake. Chloris looked up from her papers and for a little while they listened to that distant clear-cold voice.

“They’re friends of yours, aren’t they?” said Chloris.

“The Copelands? Yes. Dinah’s beginning to be quite a good actress. She’s going to play in my new thing, if the Blitzkrieg doesn’t beat us to it. I suppose it won’t seem odd to you, but for at least twelve hours I haven’t thought about my play. What do you make of the notes?”

“There are some things I didn’t know about, but not many.” Chloris caught her breath. “You say at the end: ‘Could Hart have set a second booby-trap?’ ” Do you mean could he have done something with that frightful weapon that would make it fall on…? Is that what you mean?”

“Yes. I can’t get any further though. I can’t think of anything.”

“A Busman’s Honeymoon -ish sort of contraption? But there are no hanging flower-pots at Highfold.”

“Well, if you can think of anything! I must tell you I went into the room before we left. I looked all round, trying to see if some little thing was out of order in the arrangement of the room, unusual in any way. I — didn’t enjoy it. I couldn’t see anything remotely suggestive of booby-traps. The ceiling’s a high one. Anyway, how could Hart have dangled a stone weapon from the ceiling?”

As soon as these words had fallen from his lips, Mandrake experienced a strange foreknowledge of how they could be answered. So vivid was this impression that when Chloris did speak, it was to him exactly as though she echoed his thoughts.

“Are you so certain,” she said, “that it must be Dr. Hart?”

And he heard his own voice answer, as if it spoke to a given cue: “I thought I was. Aren’t you?” She didn’t reply and a moment later he said with an air of conviction: “It must be. Who else?” And as she still kept silence: “Who else?”

“Nobody, I suppose. Nobody, of course.”

“If it was anybody else the original booby-trap goes unexplained. We know that only Hart could have set it. Don’t we?”

“I suppose so. Although, reading your notes, mightn’t it be just possible that one of the alibis…? It’s your evidence.”

“I know what you mean, but it’s beyond all bounds incredible. Why? Not a motive in the wide world! Besides, I can’t believe it, It’s monstrous.”

“Yes, I know. Well then, what about a second booby-trap? The detective stories tell you to look for the unusual, don’t they?”

“I don’t read them,” said Mandrake with some slight return to his professional manner. “However, I did look for the unusual.”

“And found nothing?”

“And found nothing. The room had a ghastly air of interrupted normality.”

They were ploughing through a small drift. The snow yielded, mounted in a wall in front of the radiator and splashed across the wind-screen. They felt a familiar and ominous quiver and in a moment had come to a standstill.

“Out comes wold shovel agin,” said James cheerfully. “She’s not a bad ’un this time, sir.”

Mandrake backed out of the drift and again James set to work.

“There’s one detail,” said Mandrake, “that for some reason annoys me. No doubt there’s nothing in it.”

“What’s that?”

“You saw it. Do you remember the drawing-pin in the sole of my shoe? I picked it up in the smoking-room. There’s dried paint on it and it’s the same as the ones that are stuck in the lid of William’s paint-box.”

“I’m afraid I don’t see…”

“I said there was nothing in it. The only thing is, why should William have had a drawing-pin in the study? He did no painting at Highfold.”

“Yes, he did,” Chloris contradicted. “At least he did a drawing of me yesterday before lunch. It was while he was doing it that we had our row. And the paper was pinned down to a bit of board. And he dropped one of the pins.”

“Oh,” said Mandrake, flatly. “Well, you might add that to the notes. That’s a flop then. What do we think of now?”

“Well, I can’t think of anything,” said Chloris hopelessly.

“What the devil,” said Mandrake, “is that old mountebank doing?”

James Bewling, having cleared a passage in front of the car, had, with great difficulty, climbed the bank under the buried hedgerow and now stood waving his arms and pointing down the road. Mandrake sounded his horn and James instantly plunged down the bank and across the intervening snowdrift to the car. He climbed into the back seat, shouting excitedly as he came.

“Road’s clear, down-along,” shouted James. “There’s a mort of chaps with shovels and one of they scrapers. On ’ee go, sir, us’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Thank God!” said Mandrake and Chloris sincerely.

Dinah Copeland trudged down the side path and pressed her face against the French window, instantly obscuring it with her breath. Alleyn put down his book and let her in.

“You do look wholesome,” he said.

“Did you hear me ring the Angelus?” she demanded. “Was it all right, Daddy?”

“Very nice, my dear,” said the Rector out of the corner of his mouth, “but I mustn’t talk. Mrs. Alleyn’s doing my bottom lip.”

“I’ve finished,” said Troy.

“For the morning?”

“Yes. Would you like to look?”

Dinah kicked off her snow-boots and hurried round the easel. Troy grinned at her husband, who upon that signal joined her. She thrust her thin arm in its painty sleeve through his and with Dinah they looked at the portrait.

“Pleased?” Alleyn asked his wife.

“Not so bad from my point of view, but what about Dinah?”